


How was the war for you?

by Superbanana



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: Angst, Childhood, Oneshot, a bit dark, back story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 19:24:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10577907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superbanana/pseuds/Superbanana
Summary: Patsys history is always kind of hinted at. Its one of those things that we all know is bad, its the reason she struggles so much to deal with affection so this is my take on it.





	

"So what was the war like for you?"

Honestly, that damned question comes up far too often, even fifteen years on. Its popularity as a conversation opener has waned as the world stubbornly continues to tumble on and the people step out of the shadow of war but even now it crops up and stumps her all over again. 

Patsy tends to try for simple adjectives whenever its asked of her, simple one word answers like; hot, long, hard. Most people nod sympathetically and speak about themselves then and she can continue to keep it buried but occasionally someone probes a little further and Patsy feels the memories crawling over her skin like the never ending mosquitoes of her teenage years.

"What was the war like for you?" 

How could she possibly ever answer that truthfully? Patsy doesn't even know how one could start. She could tell them what hot really means. The kind of hot that means your skin is so slick with sweat and dirt your eyes weep from the stinging steam that never seems to stop swirling around your aching face and blistering hands. As though you have your very own salted cloud following your tired footsteps as you are shouted at to always, always move faster, to carry heavier and ever heavier loads as the crowd of walking skeletons that crowds you becomes smaller and smaller. The kind of hot that makes your throat forget it has ever known water so that when you speak your voice is a cough that scrapes your laranx and coats your tongue with bile. The kind of hot that bleaches bones and rots the skin of corpses so the skin hangs away from the bones like black sails on a ship. 

And if they still asked, what then? how could she ever tell them of the terror of not knowing whether the war would end. That long was how it felt for time to be made of trails of footprints in front of your own and dust. Every day becoming so uniform that you began to think you were slowly turning mad and the only way to mark time was to count the living even as the deaths became more and more numerous. Would it be possible to ever fully describe what long feels like when you wake up every day expecting not to do so again. Long is scratching lines on mud hut walls until you lose the ability to care about trying to count anymore.

Hard is a word she says because she understands that there are no other words that could mean what she needs it to. Hard means promising your dying mother that you'll keep your sister safe. Hard is knowing that your never going to be able to keep that promise even as you pray and scramble about in the food line for just a few more grains of rice. Hard is standing by the doorway to your hut that houses thirty women at a time the size of your fathers cricket shed and watching your only family members being carried to the edge of camp. Hard is marching past their twisted remains that the acrid lime powder is slowly burning away and not falling to the ground in grief. Hard is being beaten to within an inch of your life but getting back up as soon as the assailants gone and understanding the man to your side was not so lucky. Hard is following orders and structure until you dont know what to do when your not moving or lifting or grasping at a task. Hard is being set free and being pitied by new soldiers who vomit as they are forced to touch your skin and smell the scent you have long since forgotten lingered around you.

How was the war for you? 

Patsy couldn't even begin to answer that question. She doesn't know how to make it understandable to anyone and she couldn't bare the shame if they ever really understood. 

When she left the camp she was washed and washed again. They burned the rags she wore, her shoes. But still the dirt is there, under her skin where the strongest of chemicals can't seem to ever reach. It rithes against her even as she smiles in her clean white nurses jacket. 

How was the war for you?


End file.
